me that her master would not allow me to go to see her, if I would not consent to what he now proposed; for any colored person going on the grounds of a white man, after being warned off, is liable to be flogged, or even shot.  I thus found myself forced to go, although no colored man wishes to live at the house where his wife lives, for he has to endure the continual misery of seeing her flogged and abused, without daring to say a word in her defence.

In the service of Mr. Sawyer, I got into a fair way of buying myself again; for I undertook the lightering of shingles or boards out of the Dismal Swamp, and hired hands to assist me.  But my master had become security for his two sons-in-law at Norfolk, who failed; in consequence of which he sold eighteen colored people, his share of the Swamp, and two plantations.  I was one of the slaves he kept, and after that had to work in the corn-field the same as the rest.  The overseer was a bad one; his name was Brooks.  The horn was blown at sunrise; the colored people had then to march before the overseer to the field, he on horseback.  We had to work, even in long summer days, till twelve o’clock, before we tasted a morsel, men, women, and children all being served alike.  At noon the cart appeared with our breakfast.  It was in large trays, and was set on the ground.  There was bread, of which a piece was cut off for each person; then there was small hominy boiled, that is, Indian-corn, ground in the hand-mill, and besides this two herrings for each of the men and women, and one for each of the children.  Our drink was the water in the ditches, whatever might be its state; if the ditches were dry, water was brought to us by the boys.  The salt fish made us always thirsty, but no other drink than water was ever allowed.  However thirsty a slave may be, he is not allowed to leave his employment for a moment to get water; he can only have it when the hands in working have reached the ditch, at the end of the rows.  The overseer stood with his watch in his hand, to give us just an hour; when he said, ‘Rise,’ we had to rise and go to work again.  The women who had children laid them down by the hedge-row, and gave them straws and other trifles to play with; here they were in danger from snakes; I have seen a large snake found coiled round the neck and face of a child, when its mother went to suckle it at dinner-time.  The hands work in a line by the side of each other; the overseer puts the swiftest hands in the fore row, and all must keep up with them.  One black man is kept on purpose to whip the others in the field; if he does not flog with sufficient severity, he is flogged himself; he whips severely, to keep the whip from his own back.  If a man have a wife in the same field with himself, he chooses a row by the side of hers, that, with extreme labor, he may, if possible, help her.  But he will not be in the same field if he can help it; for, with his hardest labor, he often cannot save her from being flogged, and he is